Is it alright to attack on turn 1? Lets say its 4 or 5 against 1. thats an easy spoil for you. Shouldnt that outweigh the loss of 1/2 troops? OR what if you have access to more reinforcements once you attack, building up a stack and gaining a spoil.

99% of the time it is best to NOT attack on turn 1. There are, of course, a few exceptions. Owning 3/4 of Oz or SA is one. If you get a bad drop and don't have any natural forts, but are preceded by a player who leaves a 1 between two of your territs you might want to make the attack in order to build a decent stack. A similar situation might arise if you are blocked out of NA or Asia.

These are rare instances, however, so try to get in the habit of NOT attacking in round 1, but remember to keep an eye on the map always looking for a tactical advantage.

oldrisky44 wrote:99% of the time it is best to NOT attack on turn 1. There are, of course, a few exceptions. Owning 3/4 of Oz or SA is one. If you get a bad drop and don't have any natural forts, but are preceded by a player who leaves a 1 between two of your territs you might want to make the attack in order to build a decent stack. A similar situation might arise if you are blocked out of NA or Asia.

These are rare instances, however, so try to get in the habit of NOT attacking in round 1, but remember to keep an eye on the map always looking for a tactical advantage.

There are even exceptions from the exceptions. Personally I do not attack in round 1 and take a small bonus area even if I get 3/4 of it. I consider any spot the same way. In escalating style it is not a small bonus area that win the game. If I do assault and take a small bonus area in round one however, it's a combination of 3/4 small bonus area and bad drop, and necessary not only due 3/4 of a small bonus area.

I rather wait and let others into the small bonus area. Why? I consider all spots the same way. Small bonus areas does not excist. Small bonus areas has less with escalating style to do.

im assuming you guys are on about esc because otherwise clearly it's good/ok to attack on your first turn. On esc, i generally do take a spoil first still - with more players (say 6-8), it's probably best to be second or third i recon, but it's good playing spoils first because when you can make a kill, your opponents will generally have more spoils for large player games (if you go later, what you do hand in will be worth more though). For 1v1 id definitely try to go first as lateron in the game you'll get to a stage when whoever hands in next spoil practically wins or if you can hand in on 3 cards, and they need to wait until 4, you win - something like that.

In general, having spoils earlier gives more of a long-term advanage and having spoils later a short-term advantage

I really understand that principal of not attacking anyone on the first round (99% of the time). Not just to see how the other players are aligning their forces or building stacks as those are also very good reasons, but simply as a preperation round.

Before a runner runs a race he stretches. That is his preperation round. He does not just arrive at the tracks and goes straight to the starting line. Before a doctor practices medicine he goes to medical school and learns despite how much he may already know. That is a doctors preperation round. They don't just take an exam, pass, get their license and go straight to work. They spend time in learning and preparing.

The military is the same way. first they train soldiers then they build up or send those troops over to the war zone and then they proceed with Operation Dessert Storm or what ever invasion they have in mind but that build up of forces is their preperation round.

It seems that all of nature has something of a preperation round before producing the fruits of it's labors. If preperation is a natural and universal law then it just seems logical that even in games one benefits from a preperation round. Just like in Chess. To ignore this Universal law must be detrimental to ones game and growth.

There are rules for every map and every drop. It is more helpful if you give a specific map with specific settings. Since any combination of map/settings/players can change play style and reasoning a little or a lot. Then you have to add the drop which changes the rules too.

Given what you said I would attack a 4/5 vs a 1 in round 1 without a doubt to get a spoil if it is flat rate or escalating...if it is nuclear or no spoils, there is no benefit to attacking just to attack.

One of the hardest things to do is to unlearn bad habits. When it's escalating, I see a single and I think card. All I want is an easy single for a card each turn, with some decent stack positions. Who needs bonuses? But staying my trigger finger on that first round is a difficult to unlearn behavior. Thank you all at the SoC for helping people like me to recover from regrettable habits and making us ... contenders at least.

One of the reasons we teach students not to attack on the first round of an Escalating game is to unlearn that habit of attacking every single round. Too often, players think they absolutely have to get a card on the first round, and they'll hit 3s until they get a card.

In the first few rounds, troop count and holding your position are more important than cards. Later in the game, the cards become much more important, but as long as you stay within 2 cards of the leader, you'll be ok.

Later, after you have more experience playing Escalating, you'll get a feel for when it's safe to get the card and when it would be better not to. For instance, if you drop all on one tert to get a card on a 1, you're not building up your stacks in other areas of the map, and some other player might hit one of your 3s and leave you without access to that region.

Iron Butterfly wrote:You do not need a card every turn. You do not need a card turn 1. Better to build and watch how others react. Can you take a card? Of course. Slow and staeady wins the race.

No it doesn't.

There are benefits to taking and not taking a card on the first round, it completely depends on the map, the drop and your long term tactics for the game. Some things you can't teach with generalizations.

Of course, Trevor. And it's important to emphasize that what IB is talking about is only a general guideline and applies to the conditions we're discussing.

Each map is different. For the purposes of this discussion, we're talking about 6+ player Escalating Term/Standard games on classic-style maps. In Escalating Pelops or Feudal, for instance, you do want to take a card on your first turn, but on a classic-style map, there's no rush to get a card.

macbone wrote:we're talking about 6+ player Escalating Term/Standard games on classic-style maps.

OK lets concentrate on the classic map, obviously if you're up first it's best spread on your troops and fort if you can to get a few mini stacks but after that if the possibility to fort say in Asia, there's an easy card available in Europe and you have a region in America, why not add one in America, 2 to Europe - take the card and fort in Asia. 3 little stacks in the 3 most important areas in the map plus you've got more options with the cards later in the game, if might work out that you need to take a card each turn after taking one in round one or you could have a free turn later in the game to build as others lose troops to pick up cards.

You never know when the easy card option is going to be available, if you can take it in round one and stay in contact with the 3 main zones, i say do it... every time.

I'd like the scenario better if I could afford to drop 3 to take the card. Best case scenario, I can fort to NA and Asia and have a shot at a 1-spot in Europe. Drop 3 to give me 6, so I can lose 2 and still have 4, and then fort in NA and Asia to keep my stacks there.

Once you get shut out of North America, it makes it hard to eliminate players there, and some people like to hit 3s right off to go for the card.

And if I drop 3 in Oz or SA, I usually load 'em up and go for the continent bonus. Doing so is risky, especially if the other players decide to take me out elsewhere, but with minimum loss of troops, it's worth it, I think, particularly from South America if you're strong on the borders - you can still get into North America and Africa from there. Oz is safer, but it takes longer to get somewhere once you break out.

The Link at the top is to the article, "Not attacking on the first move; A point in particular."It's in "Issue 65 of The CC Dispatch Newsletter" just below the Office of strategic services; Games, Strategy and SoC Training grounds.So you don't have to scroll down too far to find it.

It's a very interesting read and I am not saying that just because I wrote it.

One of the reasons that people don't want to take a card the first turn is because the first to turn in only gets 4 troops and the later you turn in, the more you get. Some people actually go so far as to not attack at all in order to get that 5th card that forces them to turn in later so they can get more troops when they do. While that makes sense, there's another way to look at it.

If you do go ahead and get that first card on the first turn and continue to get one each turn, you'll be turning in first and getting the measly 4 troops but when that last player, that 7th one, gets his fifth card and turns in for 20 (we do get 12 after 10 here and don't go straight to 15 from 10, right?), then if you continue to turn in first, although you'll get less than the others, you'll have less cards when that second round of turnins starts at 25 troops. And with fewer cards, you'll be a much less tempting target for elimination than the others.

I often turn in whenever possible instead of waiting just so I won't tempt anyone to eliminate me. It's the very strong players with too many troops to kill who can afford to wait for that 5th card before turning in.